The
Brooklyn Museum couldn't buy publicity like this. New York
mayor Rudy Giuliani knows how to give the Brooklyn Museum
of Art a big attendance boost (and make an artist's career
in the process).

By
early
accounts,[NYTimes] Renée
Cox is an artist with "a minor reputation as an artist
of expensive-looking, technically proficient photographs."
But that didn't stop the art-loving mayor from considerably
elevating her position in the artworld when he
denounced Cox's photo[NYTimes]
"Yo Mama's Last Supper," being shown as part of BMA's "Committed
to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers" show, for
being "disgusting," "outrageous" and "anti-Catholic."

Guaranteeing
that Cox will be in the news for weeks to come (and that crowds
will be flocking to the BMA), he also promised to appoint
a commission to set "decency standards" to ensure such work
stays out of museums that receive public money. He's likely
to be thwarted in that threat, just
as he was last year[CBC]
when he tried to withhold city funding to the BMA because
he objected to it showing a Chris Ofili painting as part of
the "Sensation"
show[ArtsJournal].

Of
course, the mayor hasn't yet seen the photo itself, but particularly
after last year's "Sensation" storm, he had to know
that his public condemnations would ignite another media flurry.
And now the issue will play out with all the predictable
players[NY Post] taking their
predictable sides, including
Cox,[Salon] who will make
a career of portraying the aggrieved artist. Can you say Holly
Hughes? Here we go again.